Dancing with the Dead
by thundercow
Summary: He wishes he could live his life in any way other than this. — AU, if Reborn decided not to tutor Tsuna.


**notes**– I've been on a reborn! streak lately, but this will be one of the last fics for awhile, and it was written for a challenge on lj. The prompt was '_(Tsuna) memories: he looked back into the past_' and I've put my own AU spin on it; dark themes and drama ahoy.

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><p><strong>Dancing with the Dead<strong>

Tsuna remembered a transfer student with grey hair and exotic green eyes. He scowled in a way that made him unapproachable to the majority of the school population. The only boy who attempted to talk to him, and found enjoyment out of it, was the baseball team's ace. Yamamoto tried to make friends with him, but was later found cracked into pieces on the ground after plummeting five floors down from the school roof.

The rumours said that Gokudera had been the one who pushed.

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><p>Gokudera was unfazed by the news. He was more intent on sneering at Tsuna with those fierce eyes of his, almost like he was waiting for a slip-up, for a chance to do him in. He stunk of singed cigarettes and ashes, and he was one of the worst memories of junior high and high school combined.<p>

Tsuna spent the next five years of schooling hiding from Gokudera, until he finally left on a plane bound for an uncharted destination.

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><p>Kyouya Hibari used to be the prefect everyone feared. He wielded weapons of steel and a nonchalant face and an infamous (ironic) intolerance for anything mildly defiant. One of Tsuna's main goals in school was to avoid Hibari at all costs. He made sure late-comers were punished and persuaded to be in school an hour before the first bell, even as they struggled with casts and crutches. He patrolled the hallways with a militaristic swag, and Tsuna honestly hadn't minded as long as he wasn't on the receiving end of Hibari's brutality.<p>

One day, he disappeared after a golden pocket watch had been left on his desk.

His body was found weeks later in a rundown amusement park on the outskirts of town, blanketed by withered cherry blossoms. A tiny bird with yellow feathers was crooning a swan song over the dehydrated, bone-broken boy, whose skeletal hands were still wrapped firmly around his tonfas, even in death.

Tsuna learned how mortal humans were that day during the principal's address. No matter how skilled they could be with weapons or how much respected fear they collected, everyone was going to die sooner or later.

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><p>A quiet Chinese girl and a noisy boy in a cow suit wandered the streets for a short period of time. They were separate cases with no relation to one another, but both children that would not find a family in Nanimori. They were eventually picked up and shipped off to an orphanage by a girl with a kind heart and warm eyes. Tsuna thought that she was a nice person when he saw her strolling to the girl's school on the other side of town – that maybe if she was his friend, his life would have been just a little bit brighter.<p>

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><p>Ryohei Sasagawa, star of the boxing team, moved on to claim the championship the nationals and carry the medal back to Nanimori High. He was a celebrated individual and a role model for all the jocks. On his way to school, Tsuna observed him train every day without fail – jogging or skipping rope or lifting weights, rain or shine.<p>

He admired the senior for all his strength and his determination, but the question was – what was he doing it all for?

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><p>A ten-year old with a thick scarf, a book that was half the size of his scrawny body and clear, innocent eyes had been reported missing on the news. He was never found.<p>

Following that, another body was located in the rundown amusement park, this time of a student from Kokuyo High. He died with one eye open and the other shut tight. A foreign pistol rested in his limp hand and a smile of ecstasy was carved onto his face.

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><p>Kyoko Sasagawa, the girl of his dreams, never came to notice him. When Mochida, the captain of Kendo club, challenged him to a match, Tsuna skipped the entire day of school and locked himself up in his room. He tossed and turned on his bed, and wondered if that was the limit of his love for Kyoko-chan.<p>

When he went to school the next day, he was a laughing stock – which really wasn't out of the ordinary at all.

He saw Kyoko-chan standing along the hallway as he trudged to class. She regarded at him with careful sympathy, just for a second. She opened her mouth, almost as if she wanted to say something – but Mochida interrupted her when he placed an arm around her shoulders and proceeded to tease him for his spinelessness.

Tsuna bowed his head and didn't dare to look at her pretty eyes for the rest of the school year.

Later on, he witnessed Kyoko snapping into two after enduring Mochia's advances for too long a time, saw her frown and raise her voice and throw a punch she'd learned from her brother, watch as the pretty image of the girl he thought he liked shrivelled up in front of his eyes.

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><p>A girl and a stray cat were crushed under the tires of a skidding car. No one in particular cared, but Tsuna felt a sting of sadness, for no reason, when he happened across the scene of the tragic incident.<p>

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><p>His father was killed while working on the construction site – by a metal pipe that had snapped off its harness and had taken him out from the back, struck him clean through the middle of his head. This had been what the people, dressed in refined black suits and red eyes, told him and his mother as they stood at his door. His mother wiped the corners of her eyes and invited them into the house for tea.<p>

Tsuna wanted to believe that his dad had died for a greater, more heroic reason than that.

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><p>This was the only thing that remained constant in his hometown – death, death, death.<p>

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><p>.<p>

.

Tsunayoshi Sawada looks up from the perpetually dirty street, clutching a dustpan and rake in his skinny hands. It is so cold on these empty pathways with no one around. Somewhere in the creases of his heart, where it is barely warm enough, the twenty-four year old wishes that he could live his life in any other way than this.

He hears footsteps approaching from behind, and the first instinct is to run.

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><p>In Italy, a baby in a fedora realizes his mistake ten years too late, when a boy with an angry scar is crowned the Vongola Decimo. Reborn thinks that if Tsunayoshi Sawada is still alive now, perhaps there is a dormant sky flame flickering in him that can save them all.<p>

In Japan, a madman with bleached hair kills a young girl with a star under her eye using a pointed dagger, and a worthless street cleaner with a cheap bullet –

Just in case.


End file.
